#peakoil It will take much cheaper oil for Saudi Arabia to take action: THERE comes a time when any self-respe...

On August 23rd OPEC-member Iran echoed the frustrations previously aired by Algeria and said it would welcome—or “not disagree with”—an emergency meeting of the producers’ cartel to shore up prices. Yet two days later Bijan Zanganeh, its oil minister, outlined plans, once nuclear-related sanctions are lifted, to eventually add 1m barrels a day (b/d) to production, reclaiming lost market share. (He also said investment had shrunk to almost nothing, so it was not clear how Iran would achieve this.) Iraq, too, is pumping hard to make up for production lost during years of sectarian conflict. The Paris-based International Energy Agency says Iraqi crude output has jumped by 740,000 b/d in the course of this year, a much larger proportional increase than Saudi Arabia’s